Friday, May 31, 2013

ASMR continued form in May, as it was yet another busy month for ASMR. In fact, probably the busiest month so far in its history.

To kick things off, Cristina Mendoza tweeted of an upcoming ASMR segment on News10 on the ABC television network, which screened on Monday the 6th of May, 2013 at 11 PM. A trailer of this was put up on YouTube, and during the show, Cristina even took a stab at making her own whisper video, as she did a tour of the studio, whilst whispering. News10.net also published three articles on their website, which can be found here, here, and here. The general consensus was that this was one of the more unbiased attempts to cover ASMR by any media outlet.

Not long after this, ABC15 News ran a segment on ASMR on a show called Taking Action on Thursday the 16th of May, 2013 at 10 PM. There was a small trailer that was uploaded to Stephanie Hockridge’s (the show’s host) YouTube channel. Jennifer AppreciateAsmr appeared on the show in the form of a recorded interview that was done the day before. Those in Phoenix, Arizona got to watch the show live, whereas others can watch it online on YouTube.

Australian media outright mocked ASMR, with a thus far unsourced clip appearing on YouTube. This is a disturbing trend. It seems that if the media isn’t labelling it a fetish, then they’re classifying it as “boredom addiction”. I don’t usually let personal opinions get in the way here, but I dislike it when bias creeps in to the media, and this is another typical example of the media completely missing the entire point.

A German Radio show broadcasted a show with a segment on ASMR, which was caught by Donna ASMR and translated in to English in the form of subtitles with the help of GrowlingWhispers. This may or may not be linked to this German website that has a write-up about ASMR; the “radio” part in the URL gives me that impression. Just while we’re on the subject, a new German ASMR website was launched recently too. It seems as though the ASMR craze that swept through The Netherlands last year has progressed to other parts of Western Europe now. There’s also a new Russian based ASMR website that forms part of the growing Russian ASMR community which boasts names like Maria Gentlewhispering, so maybe a sweep of ASMR fever for Eastern Europe isn’t too far off now.

An article was published on bbc.com, with the title of “Does Boredom Give You Pleasure?”, and this was followed up with a blog post on Mindhacks.com. Both were written by Tom Stafford, a professor of psychology.

Michelle Joni, who wanted to get in contact with any ASMRtists in New York last month, published her piece on ASMR over at Spaweekly.

ASMRLab tweeted about a free eBook that they’re offering to anyone who registers for free on their website. It’s 16 pages dedicated to teaching you how to get the best out of your ASMR experience.

A Ph.D student by the name of Regis James has expressed interest in starting up research at the scientific institution he attends. He states that he has spoken with an “internationally-known neuroscientist” to discuss the possibility of conducting a study on ASMR. The thus far anonymous neuroscientist says that he wants some good samples, or trigger videos first to determine whether the study would be worthwhile. Regis is open for suggestions, so if you know of a video that is particularly good one for triggering ASMR, be sure to contact Regis over at Facebook, or YouTube.

As for the other study that was to be undertaken at Dartmouth College, there’s a small update I can provide, through the story of someone who posted their account on YouTube. According to this individual who participated in the study, she was sent profile questions via email which she had to answer. She was also asked to provide links to five reliable trigger videos. When she travelled to the college, she had to lie in an MRI machine and was instructed to press three buttons – one which had to be held down while videos played, another which had to be held down when a relaxed, hypnotic stated was achieved, and a third one for when any tingling sensations started. This all went on for about 45 minutes. There were 20 people who participated in the study overall and the study took place over a period of three days, with most people getting about an hour each. Check the image above for her full story.

The results of the study haven’t been released yet, but hopefully this coming month they will be.

A new, version 2.0 of the ASMR app for iOS by Sasssou Studio was released. It’s now $2.99 instead of $0.99, and comes with several major updates. In fact by the time I publish this, the app should be up to v 2.0.1. The developer very graciously gave me 3 promo codes that I could give away. I decided to give one key to the first person who replied to the relevant tweet on Twitter; another one to the person who won a small competition on our Facebook group (which is still on-going), and the third and final one to the person who posted the most in the allotted time period on our forum (also on-going).

That’s it for May 2013. What a month it was! Be sure to come back at the end of next month where I’ll bring you up to speed once more. Also be sure to follow ASMR Research & Support on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates.

Site Updates

These are just mini-updates that I was too lazy or busy to make a post for. They also list changes or additions that have been made to the blog, for interest's sake and to follow how the blog is developing.